Monday 1st October

I have done the unthinkable today. After not sleeping well, having to walk to work in the drizzle and the wind in a skirt, having very little do at work all day and thus being mind-numbingly bored, and putting myself into a thoroughly foul mood on my walk home for various reasons, I thought I would capitalise on the I-can't-feel-worse feeling and join Slimming World. Thus, it is done. I thought as I walked into the meeting, I really don't want to do this, it's going to be so humiliating et cetera et cetera. What can I say? I wasn't exactly wrong - I wasn't much comforted by the fact that I was the youngest person there, but then it was never going to be an easy thing to do, and as horrible things to do go, it wasn't so bad. I joined up to get the literature; it's not as I had imagined - just lists of food from which to make your own menus - at the moment this seems like a lot of hard work but then I am still on autohiss and I'm grotty from lack of sleep so I expect I will feel better about it tomorrow, as I say no to the chocolate chip digestives (gnash teeth) and start taking my coffee without sugar (stifled moan). I'm trying to just visualise seeing people at Christmas who I haven't seen in a while and them being really impressed because there's less of me to see, and that's sort of a motivational thing. Plus, of course, being healthier (I just said that for effect - although, granted, it is important). And the thought of having to go to Ibiza next year with Jen at this size is enough to bring me out in a cold sweat - the heckling was bad enough in English clubs where acres of 70 denier black lycra were perfectly acceptable. There are two issues I can foresee with the die...*cough* sorry Healthy Eating Plan...on no day is bread an unlimited item, and vodka, soda and lime (pint of) (my new drink of choice) is five sins, out of ten a day (vodka was the first sin I looked up, followed by chocolate digestives, and then cider...rather telling, I think). I can see myself living virtuously all week long and then having 14 pints of vodka, soda and lime on Saturday night. And shortly thereafter dying of over lubrication. I'm kidding - who could see me living virtuously all week? Was pleasantly surprised to realise I can still eat sausages and onions, and that diet coke is an unlimited extra. I'm going to give it until Christmas - since I'll be moving then, I will be able to escape the clutches of my consultant with minimal difficulty. Was shocked to find out that they back charge for meetings you miss - you're only allowed to miss four meetings a year: any more than that and you have to pay anyway. So no good trying to miss a week cos I'm skint - I'll only have to pay double the next week.

At least Marlboro Light Menthols are sin-free. I'll tackle that after the weight thing. I am trying to kick another bad habit at the moment too which is proving a bit irksome, especially on days when I am particularly tired (such as today), but it's not going too badly. I'm not going to say what it is because it's horribly childish and I'm quite ashamed of it. I'll tell you when I've given up - three weeks from now, if everything goes according to plan.

I'm going to hiss off and read through my literature now, and browse their website looking up the sin values of all my favourite foods, since all my favourite foods are bound to be sinnish and not healthy extra or, even better, free choice. Swede is free choice, mind you, and I'm quite partial to swede with lots of pepper (also a free choice). I think I might have to wave goodbye to the really easy grab-two-bits-of-bread-and-stick-something-between-them lifestyle for now, though, unless it's that cardboard Nimble stuff. Please take pity on me and send me care packages of crispbread and luscious looking fruits. One major bonus - I have to say this for the benefit of Emilia, if she is reading, because she always used to say that Zoe and I were terribly unhealthy eating lots of eggs and the Finnish reccommended two a week. Slimming World reccommends ten a week - and that's as a free choice. So it looks like I won't have to wave goodbye to my breakfast egg on toast after all (I know, Emilia, my arteries would be screaming were they Scandinavian).

Tuesday 2nd October

The Diet - day 1. So far, has not been too bad, but then I did cheat a bit - I had two chocolate chip digestives with my afternoon coffee - I was trying to make up for using nutrasweet instead of sugar in it; also I had a sandwich for breakfast, and a sandwich for lunch, purely for convenience. I did tell the consultant not to expect me to lose weight by next Monday because I didn't know whether I'd have time to sit down and plan things, but as it turns out it's not such a difficult thing to do. Last night before I went to bed I wrote down all the recipes I could think of that seemed low fat, and was pleasantly surprised that I can live on pretty much what I did while I was a student - with the obvious omission of sandwiches. It means I'll be doing green days much more than original (ie, lots of starch and bean days and only a few meat and fish days) but vegetarians only ever do green days anyway so it's not really a problem. After work today I went to the supermarket and bought 13 cans of tinned tomatoes and varieties of bean (chickpeas, cannellini et cetera) as well as a pound of grapes, six apples, fifteen bananas, two leeks, five tomatoes, three pounds of carrots and a swede. I'm taking this "don't go hungry" thing to heart. Since I've had time on my hands at work this past fortnight, and Rita is a disciple of Excel, I have found myself working through an Excel training manual and find myself a bit of a whizz on it now, so I think I might employ it, and its useful cells, to crunch the Slimming World info into a more easily digestible format.

Obsessed with food already? Not at all. And I haven't even had a cigarette since Sunday.

One thing that struck me about last night's class was the age of the members. As I might have said, I was the youngest person there (with one or two possible challengers) but on the whole the members seemed to be in their 40s and 50s, and I thought, how awful to have spent all your younger decades being overweight and to only just now get around to losing it. I don't think I'd like to look back on my life when I get to 50 and think, wow, there was so much I missed out on because I was fat and I can never get that back. So maybe if I try and keep hold of that thought it will serve to motivate me when I get sick of eating bean casseroles and start to crave cheese and chutney sandwiches.

Something I forgot to say yesterday - the Bunnyland image map is now finished, so you will find that the picture on the index page of this site is now clickable. I don't know how useful this will prove, but since it was what I wanted to do when I first drew the picture, and it has taken me four years to sort it out, I am all bouncy about it. Many thanks to Mr Z (of course) who mapped everything but the bunnies - I did those myself, looking up the grid references in Paint Shop Pro and painstakingly typing them into the html file. When I told Mr Z I'd finished it myself, he said, "How did you do it? Oh please don't tell me you opened Paint Shop Pro and looked up the grid references...." whereupon I started giggling nervously. How well he knows me. It seems he has a way of doing it swiftly with his mouse pen; but at least I know how to do it now. Next project - making my cat purr when you click on her picture.

I have a conspiracy theory about the terrorist attacks. I started thinking about it yesterday when I was reading the Daily Telegraph, and was at first loathe to put it here in case it turned out to be right and the FBI erased all records of me a la Enemy of the State and then tried to kill me, but after some reflection I have realised it is pretty preposterous so I thought I might anyway. It has now been widely publicised that Osama bin Laden was funded by the CIA in the 1980s, to fight against Russia - then America's enemy, now America's uneasy bedfellow. However, now that the Taleban have control of Afghanistan and the Russians have given up, the Americans realise they have made an almighty mistake because, actually, the Russians ain't half bad now they've rid themselves of that communist malarkey and the Taleban are publically executing women in football stadiums and committing countless other human rights atrocities as well as not being pro-American. However, they cannot be seen to be openly attacking Afghanistan since that would be interfering in the politics of foreign countries and America never does that (almighty coughing fit), and besides that would mean admitting that the Russians were right all along. So. They have a word with their old mate bin Laden, ask him to sort of attack on the sly, so that they can blame the Afghans and have a reason to go to war. Except that, instead of directly blaming the Afghans, they blame bin Laden himself and then threaten war because the Taleban won't hand him over - at the same time making the almighty assumption that the Taleban know his whereabouts. Thus, a double whammy - take out the Taleban so that millions of dollars can be poured into the country via humanitarian aid (ensuring that next time the Americans are attacked by terrorists they have something else to put in those "poor hard done by America, all she ever does is help and everyone bites her" emails that have been circulating), instantly converting the population of a strategic Islamic country to pro-Americans and setting up a mega grateful puppet government to negotiate with the oil sellers on America's behalf, and make bin Laden a hunted man wherever he goes. Or - another possibility - they never expected bin Laden to attack on the scale that he did and are furious about it.

I'm not speculating on who "they" might be. But I'd really like to know what Tony Blair's "undeniable proof of bin Laden's involvement" is. A signed confession perhaps? A photograph of a plane writing, "I did it, signed Osama" in the sky? Or taped conversations in the possession of US agencies - in their possession because the conversations were taking place with them? Surely not. But little things don't add up. That said, I don't have the time or the motivation to dig into it any further. It's been interesting to get the reactions of some of my American friends - generally they seem to be saddened by it, but also to think the worse of Bush and be very impressed with Tony Blair. What a pity, if Cherie's biographer is to be believed, that he will be standing down in the next election to allow his wife to pursue her High Court judge ambition.

I had an email from e-bookers this week, inviting me as a "valued customer" to take advantage of certain deals they have on flights at the moment. What a surprise, ten of the eleven offers were on flights to America - none more expensive than £253, the lowest - Heathrow the New York JFK - £208, with hotel rooms in New York's 4 star hotels going for £40 a night. I was a bit surprised to get a "valued customer" email from them, since I have booked a grand total of one flight with them; but I mentioned it to Mr Z who told me that he had had exactly the same email and he, too, has booked just a single flight with them in the past. If I had the time and money I might consider it, but alas no.

I had better get to bed. If I don't get up for work tomorrow there will be nobody to silently curse Heidi-the-carer for not sending her timesheets in. I'll leave you with a quote from The Onion because this little article made me gasp and laugh. Naturally it's copyright The Onion and you should visit their page and all that stuff because they ARE brilliant - but this was in last week's issue and now must be dug for. Please go and read this week's issue to make up for me reproducing this.

Bush Sr. Apologizes To Son For Funding Bin Laden In '80s
MIDLAND, TX — Former president George Bush issued an apology to his son Monday for advocating the CIA's mid-'80s funding of Osama bin Laden, who at the time was resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. "I'm sorry, son," Bush told President George W. Bush. "We thought it was a good idea at the time because he was part of a group fighting communism in Central Asia. We called them 'freedom fighters' back then. I know it sounds weird. You sort of had to be there." Bush is still deliberating over whether to tell his son about the whole supporting-Saddam Hussein-against-Iran thing.

Monday 8th October

The Diet - day 7. The week has not gone as slowly and with as much difficulty as I thought it might - I was starving all day on Friday but realised when I totted up my totals at the end of the day that I had had about one sin for the entire day, and my pasta salad at lunchtime consisted of much more salad than pasta because I was too lazy to cook any fresh and used Mother Hand's Wednesday night leftovers. It's all very well for these healthy eating types to say "Snack on fruit, snack on fruit, blah blah" but there's no doubt about it - fruit does not work. I ate six plums, an apple and two bananas during the course of Friday and I was ready to eat the furniture by the time I got home. Was most gratified though when I roasted myself some tomatoes and peppers with garlic to have over pasta and Sibling came into the kitchen demanding to know how something slimming could be low fat. Ha ha, I replied, because I'm an excellent cook. And also because I know that few smells beat oven roasting tomatoes and garlic. I ate an enormous plateful and finished it off whilst Mr Z ate his post-train journey kebab; Saturday's dinner consisted of a rather mammoth steak (served with mushrooms - but more on the mushroom story in a minute) courtesy of Mr Z (his was bigger but I don't think I could have eaten all his) and our evening in the King's was spent experimenting. Vodka and diet coke cannot replace vodka/soda/lime as my beverage of choice, because (a) they only sell diet PEPSI and (b) they only sell it in bottles - making the round over five quid for two drinks. After that I tried a measure of peach schnapps with soda water by the pint, which turned out to be very bearable - like that fizzy water with a hint of fruit stuff they sell in supermarkets. Was even astonished to find myself feeling a bit drunk after...erm...five.

Anyway, the long and the short of this is that in the past week I have lost a mammoth EIGHT POUNDS. I'll just say that again - EIGHT POUNDS, 8LBS, over HALF A STONE, 128 ounces (oo, I like it in ounces..), over three and a half kilos. Well, I was impressed. I tried not to be. The weighing girl was in shock - she had to count it on her fingers three times before she was satisfied. "Well, it *is* my first week," I replied, all blase, stifling the urge to jump up and down - I was still standing on the scales and might have broken them. I lost the most weight out of anyone in the class - but failed to make Slimmer of the Week because you have to lose most *and* have lost the week before, and obviously I had no week before to lose in. But I *did* get my half-stone award thing. It's a sticker. Am probably overly pleased with myself but it's a bit of a motivator. I made a mistake today though - I miscounted my healthy extras and ended up doubling the amount of bread I should have had - but I just added it to the sins and held back the bag of chocolate rice cakes we got free in class which I was going to eat. It's really not all that difficult, and nice to actually eat all the things I always intended to eat but never got around to. The other thing is not cooking things in fat - I thought a lot of flavour would be lost. Admittedly, mushrooms don't taste quite so good, and I've had to sacrifice fried eggs, but everything else actually tastes better for it, I think.

Enough of that food stuff. It's true that it has become an obsession already - I'm forever looking in cookbooks and adding up sins and adapting recipes, but I knew it would, and since it's helping I don't think it's a problem. I've always read cookbooks like novels anyway. But on to my funny mushroom story. I have eaten enough mushrooms to sink a small boat since Saturday - I even snuck a big bagful into the Slimmer of the Week basket at the meeting (one of the reasons I was almost glad not to win). This is because when I went to Tesco's with Mr Z on Saturday they only had a few pathetic looking ones in stock at the lower price, and I didn't like to get the dearer ones because my shopping bill was already rather higher than I would have liked. So I got a very few, and then we went walking around the market looking for phone covers for Mother Hand's phone. The market had dwindled to about ten stalls by the time we got there, mostly fruit and veg - and one had a man standing in front of a stack of crates of mushrooms shouting, "A POUND! A POUND! A POUND!" So I, feeling blonde and in need of a bargain, pulled out a pound, thinking it was a pound for a pound. But no. Mr Z started to crease up as they siphoned an entire crate of mushrooms into a plastic bag and my face registered disbelief and then probably shock. Hence, we have been eating mushrooms. Lots of them. There were five pounds of mushrooms in that crate, by my estimation, and today they started to smell a bit strange so I boiled them up with an onion and some garlic and pureed them. Hopefully they will turn out to be nice mixed with very low fat fromage frais over pasta. Otherwise I have a jar of suspicious looking thick black stuff if anyone wants it.

This week's class was slightly better because there were younger people there (one of whom, when the King's was mentioned as a place where sin-counted foods were available, said it was to be avoided on weekend evenings on account of the large number of "ruffians" - oh how I sniggered) and still people bigger than me. Everyone cheered when my weight loss was read out, which was a bit of a boost. I have found this week that a lot of people have been giving me "helpful advice" - ie, 'don't do that, just exercise', 'don't do that, take these', 'don't do that, try this', 'why are you doing that?' etc etc. Brian's comments in the pub after ringing on Thursday stick in my mind. "Sally," he said, "I don't quite know how to put this, but you've always been big ever since I've known you [ten years] and maybe you're the sort of person who nature ordained would be big, and you carry it well...it's like, eat well, be fat and merry, or something." I've heard that often. 'You carry it well' or 'I can't imagine you *thin*, but maybe a bit lighter'. I am trying to decide whether this is a sort of backhanded encouragement, ie, 'We'll support you even if you don't lose very much', or what. I don't want to hear I carry it well. I weigh far too much for my height - whether I carry it well is not the issue, it's an excuse. And I don't want advice from people who have either never had a weight problem or who have a continuing weight problem and can therefore have little helpful advice for me. I am starting to get the feeling that everyone I know has wanted to give me dietary advice for years but hasn't been brave enough, and now I seem open to it they're putting in their two penneth. I bloody wish it was two pence a time, I'd have almost enough to move to Bristol by now.

Have been experiencing similar in my chosen career path. I received my PGCE application form this week, and think I'm going to go for it - whether I defer the place or take it up, I am applying to go to Bath next September. 'You're going into teaching? Not ANOTHER one...'; 'Oh, so you're going to teach (said as though it tasted like cod liver oil) instead'; 'DON'T DO IT!' (candid enough?). Why is everyone assuming it's a cop out? Would everyone rather I said I wanted to be a writer so that they could tell me how impossible that is or snigger like many did when I said I was going to write a novel? I am getting carried away. I just feel sort of, interfered with. Obviously not in a Kat Slater way (Harry: "You were always in those short skirts..." Kat: "It was my SCHOOL UNIFORM!" - classic line) but still. I think I might have to take it with good grace though, and bear it, or I will probably be accused of not eating properly and getting hissy because of it.

Speaking of ringing - something wonderful happened last Thursday - I rang my first touch of Stedman Triples in years and I rang it without a mistake. Even better, it was the first touch of the evening to come round - three previous touches had failed - so I was very pleased with myself. Then I got chatting to this new bloke at ringing, Chris, who is in Portsmouth working on a project for the Queen's golden jubilee (he is, I think, a civil engineer, in the RAF) and it turns out that he was shortlisted to design the monument I would have been working on had I got that MoD research project I applied for in June. Isn't it a small world? Speaking of which - here's an amazing one. Mr Z's boss at work (who was reading this recently but might have stopped now, otherwise I hope you don't mind me nicking your amazingly coincidental story) happened to be at the top of the Eiffel Tower recently and started talking to an American man standing next to him - only to discover that this very same American man had contacted him via ICQ a few weeks before aiming to make new friends abroad. The odds of that must be millions to one. But then, as Terry Pratchett is so fond of pointing out, million to one chances tend to happen nine times out of ten.

Work has been going very well, I am certainly flavour of the month. If I'm not dazzling them with my speedy typing (Rita told Lorraine the other day, who was staring in disbelief, that I wasn't actually typing any sense, I was just hitting any old keys to impress her - blatantly untrue!) then I am astounding them with my newly-discovered fantastic admin skills. I had payroll for the Isle of Wight finished by last Friday, this in spite of not receiving the changes for the final week until the Wednesday, and when I told Lesley she looked at me a bit funny before telling me that this was the first time Isle of Wight payroll had been finished on time since so-and-so left in February. That was Thursday - Thursday was a good day, between that and ringing. My first payroll, too! Pam the district manager was very impressed as well, so much so that apparently she nearly had a panic attack when Lesley mentioned I had mentioned I was moving - but luckily my job is scheduled to be moved to the Isle of Wight around the same time that I am scheduled to move to Bristol, so it's good timing. There have been a few glitches to sort out today, but everyone who has rung me up with queries has said thankyou so many times that I feel as though I have done something quite amazing. In reality, as I told Lesley, there really *isn't* that much to do - but apparently my predecessors have been plagued with a few difficulties regarding the weekly variations and incurable addictions to solitaire, which admittedly is not conducive to a smooth running operation. Yeah, I'm deliberately trying to sound snotty - but it's hard not to be a bit smug when you're being told how well you're doing all the time. This morning I was twnety minutes late due to traffic, and Lesley interrupted my grovelling with exclamations of, "Are you ok? Is everything alright?" in worried tones - I think they were starting to worry I was either ill or not coming back. Now all I have to do is convince someone to tell Office Angels how fabby I am and I might make Temp of the Month and get a bottle of wine that I can't drink or something (grin).

Didn't England do....*do* on Saturday? I thought the match was in the evening until I heard Jason downstairs screaming a string of happy expletives at the top of his lungs, which turned out to be because Beckham had just scored that equaliser in the 90th minute. Talk about teeth skin. *And* it shouldn't have been a free kick, or so I heard. But what the hell - we're through without a glitch, the Germans have to do the playoffs, and this means that next year I'll spend the summer months wishing I was somewhere else as World Cup Fever grips the nation. Last time I was lucky enough to be in America - they don't care much about the World Cup, football (soccer) is a women's sport over there. Hopefully this time nobody will blame the Spice Girls or any other poor unfortunate remotely connected with any player who fails to score a goal, as happened last time.

And so we're at war. "Oh no," said Mother Hand glumly after I informed her the Americans had attacked yesterday afternoon, "I suppose that means we'll get no decent telly tonight." Hate to admit those were also my sentiments, so I won't. Osama hasn't really helped matters with his lovely little speeches, imho, and it's a bit silly saying it's not a religious war when militant Muslims the world over are up in arms, but then what do I know. This reminds me a bit of how I felt when the Gulf War happened - it really didn't seem real, or a big deal, because it was so far away, and it was in my lifetime. As the mechanics of war changes, does popular opinion change also? Did people feel this way during World War One, or at the start of World War Two, before the bombs started falling? When the Falklands War was declared people thought it was an April Fool, if I remember rightly. Does this attitude come from a (possibly false) sense of security? No, I'm not going to answer any of those, I don't know enough. But the world watches with solidarity, or uneasiness, or anger, while the citizens of a fortunate few countries attack the cowed masses of race of one. I'm not sure that I agree, and so will try not to write too much about this topic for fear of offending. I have menus to plan - I can't be dealing with hate mail!

Wednesday 17th October

The Diet - day 16. I cheated last week - I ate a kebab. It was a shish, and I put it on my open diet sheet as grilled lamb, salad and pitta bread. Cough cough. In my defence, I ate it on a free protein day, and I didn't eat anything for 10 hours in preparation, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, at least while I was eating it. Afterwards, was horrified to realise that it had left a film of grease in my mouth that two long teeth brushings did not shift; didn't think it was any greasier than usual so maybe the unthinkable is happening and my tastes are changing. By the time I reach target weight I'll be one of those women who doesn't butter their bread anymore because they don't like the taste if I'm not careful *shudder*. That said, I had roast potatoes done without fat on Sunday and enjoyed them more than normal roast potatoes. And yesterday I had chips done without fat and they were absolutely delicious. Who would have thought it?

I didn't do quite as well at my second weigh in - I had lost two pounds - I blame the kebab, of course. But still, that makes ten pounds altogether which is very respectable for a fortnight's good eating. Figured out that if I maintain a steady weight loss of two pounds a week, I will end up weighing pretty much what I weighed when I left school by the end of the year, which is sort of my first target - that way I'll be able to get into my school uniform if Mr Z should request it (cackle). Anyway, I was joint Slimmer of the Week along with two others who had both lost two pounds each, although my consultant nearly forgot me - she read out everybody's weight loss except mine and I knew I must be one of the final two, but my weight sheet has been mislaid and so I was forgotten. But since there was food involved, I spoke up and after the meeting we divided up the Slimmer of the Week basket between the three of us - I got the apples I had put in back, and a very healthy looking cabbage, amongst other things. This week has been going well apart from yesterday when the box of crunchy nut cornflakes Mother Hand had secreted in the cupboard overpowered me and I was forced to have a small bowl. Grudgingly added it to the sins list - am trying to save my sins this week because of the ringing dinner at the weekend. I know I'm going to drink vast qunatities, because it simply wouldn't be a ringing dinner if I didn't, so figured on 30 sins for the drink (eight vodka-diet tonics and 2 glasses of red wine) and 20 for the food (beef bourg...bouga...stew) - meaning that my total sin count for the rest of the week must be no more than 55 if I'm going to stay in good grace. So far it is seventeen and a half for three days, so I appear to be just about on target. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays are always worse though because I drink. And tomorrow we're supposed to be going to Route 66 after the pub. Cannot decide whether to be strong and go home early, be strong and go out but not drink, or be weak, go out and drink. Probably the middle option. Pete-the-Student accused me of drinking piss last week when he realised I was drinking pints of soda with Archer's. Bloody students, tsdk. In fact what he said, when it was his round, was, "Dyou want another glass of piss? How much is it anyway?" to which I replied, "I don't know - I've never bought one for myself" which drew the desired reaction from various onlookers. Think I might finally have tuned my wit fine enough to have a decent retort when I need it instead of five minutes later.

Sunday 21st October

The Ringing Dinner has been and gone with no major dieting mishaps - I drank a bottle of wine on my own, but it was dry white - the most sinless wine available - and my three gins were mixed with diet tonic, and I had grilled cod and didn't butter the small slice of French bread I dipped in my soup. I did, however, succumb to the delights of the chocolate truffle dessert with ice cream, but only ate half. Argh, I can just feel Mr Z's eyes boring into me from wherever he is reading this - alright, alright, I ate two thirds, and all the sponge bottom, and had two chocolate mints with my coffee. But it was only about two inches by four anyway. And the important thing was, I managed to leave some, And I really enjoyed it. So, weigh-in tomorrow - my total sin count for last week is ninety-something, out of a possible 105. We shall see. I allowed 50 sins for the dinner and used 34 of those on the drink, but it was totally worth it. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a bottle of wine so much.

The dinner proved to be quite an eventful event, with a few old faces popping up here and there and curious ringers surreptitiously grilling me about Mr Z and telling me he seemed lovely - nice and chatty (that particular person was very drunk, I might add). I missed the speech because I was downstairs having a cigarette (coincidence that they chose a non-smoking restaurant for the dinner? Hmmmm...) but that was ok. The real scene stealer of the evening proved to be Lee, though, who disappeared and was discovered outside reciting touches of Yorkshire Major with Mark - who was noticably relieved when Mr Z and I agreed to take over watch and scarpered inside just as Lee threw up over the sea wall. This continued for oo, about an hour and a half. Annabel stole us a toilet roll and Sadie came to check on us but other than that it was just Mr Z and me, holding Lee's head, wiping Lee's mouth, giving Lee water...poor Lee. He was not at all well. By the time I got back inside to try and root out his lift - for the third time - I was decidedly hissy, and more so when I realised the bar had closed, but that was probably for the best. I made a little hissy comment rather loudly and suddenly there was a flurry of assistance by the sea wall. In the end, Richard went home with Lee in Sarah's car - Lee wanted to go to casualty but instead went to Richard and Sadie's, where he was put to bed and had his clothes washed. Mr Z and I managed to blag a lift off Tony and Petra so we didn't have to walk home from the Still and West, and I only lost a few beads off my dress, which can easily be stitched back on when I have some patience handy. So all-in-all it was a good night - typically Portsmouth Cathedral dinner, although Mavis was the last person to throw up as far as I remember. I was a bit disappointed not to be able to sit inside after the meal and chat to people, but oh well. Maybe I'll make it a permanent fixture - Lee has offered to return the favour so next year I'll have to get that drunk, heh heh heh. And Petra says she's going to email Richard to tell him I must ring Stedman on Thursday by way of payment - since my last highly successsful Stedman attempt several weeks ago, I have been mysteriously relegated to the depths of rounds, call changes and Plain Hunt and I'm starting to get a bit hacked off about it. Pete-the-student wants me to ring the tenor for a quarter of Stedman in December. The tenor ways a tonne, literally. Richard said he thought I was more than capable. I think they're dreaming.

Events in the life of Sally have been a bit thin on the ground, other than that. I suppose I should relate the mouse story because it'll give everyone a cheap laugh, and I forgot to mention it last time. I was cooking dinner last week and noticed Zig, my cat, sniffing in a cautious manner under one of the kitchen chairs. I figured she was just after something to eat and ignored her - but when I had finished my dinner, she was still sniffing around, apparently directing her attentions towards the box which had contained my mobile phone. I bent down and lifted it gingerly - to my absolute horror, an enormous black mouse fell out. I screamed - yes, I actually screamed - twice, and stood there whimpering until Mother Hand came running in, demanding to know if it was indeed a mouse, to which I replied in the affirmative. She had just turned out all the old plastic bags from the corner so thought she might have disturbed something. We shut the cats in the kitchen and ran away to regroup. Mother Hand rang her friend Paul, who wanted to know if it was light or dark coloured - when she said I'd said it was black, he said it sounded like a rat and in that case he wasn't coming round. We whimpered and dithered and squawked for a bit longer, until I returned to the kitchen. I looked at Zig, who was sat under the chair looking at me quite smugly. "Have you eaten it?" I demanded...no reply. "Well, have you? Have you eaten it?" She licked her lips and walked away. I picked up a handy device (golf club) and fearfully lifted the box with the end of it.

*CLUNK* something big and black with three legs and a very long black tail fell onto the floor. It was my spare mobile phone charger.

I'm planning to get an appointment at the optician's and see about getting contact lenses as soon as I have the money to spare. I'll never live that one down.